Maintenance Planner

• Department: Maintenance
• Reports to: Maintenance Manager
• Location: Irwindale

The Maintenance Planner is responsible for planning and preparing maintenance work to support safe, reliable, and efficient equipment operation. This role coordinates labor, parts, materials, contractor support, and maintenance documentation to ensure work orders are fully prepared and ready for scheduling and execution. The Maintenance Planner works closely with Maintenance, Production, Purchasing, Tool Crib/Warehouse personnel, vendors, and contractors to improve maintenance efficiency, equipment reliability, and PM program effectiveness.

• Maintenance Work Planning
  • Review and validate incoming maintenance work requests.
  • Develop scopes of work for corrective, preventive, predictive, and shutdown maintenance activities.
  • Determine:
    • Labor requirements
    • Skill requirements
    • Estimated labor hours
    • Required tools and equipment
    • Parts and materials
    • Safety and downtime requirements
  • Prepare work orders for scheduling and execution. Identify and coordinate required parts, materials, and contractor services for planned work.
• Parts, Materials & Contractor Coordination
  • Identify and coordinate required parts, materials, and contractor services for planned work.
  • Coordinate with Purchasing, Buyers, Tool Crib/Warehouse personnel, vendors, and contractors to ensure work readiness.
  • Track parts status, vendor lead times, purchase requests, and receiving status.
  • Ensure required materials are available prior to scheduled work.
  • Support spare parts management and inventory accuracy within the CMMS system.
• Preventive Maintenance & Reliability Support
  • Develop, revise, and improve PM/PdM procedures and job plans.
  • Review equipment failures, downtime trends, and historical maintenance data to improve maintenance effectiveness and equipment reliability.
  • Support root cause analysis and continuous improvement initiatives.
  • Ensure PM programs align with OEM recommendations, plant reliability goals, GMP, food safety, and regulatory requirements.
• CMMS Administration & Documentation
  • Maintain accurate maintenance data and documentation within the CMMS system.
  • Create and update:
    • PM templates
    • Job plans
    • Asset information
    • Parts information
    • Failure/reason codes
    • Maintenance procedures
  • Ensure maintenance documentation supports audit readiness, reporting, and maintenance tracking.
• Backlog, Scheduling & Coordination Support
  • Maintain a prioritized maintenance backlog and identify work ready for scheduling.
  • Participate in planning and scheduling meetings with Maintenance and Operations teams.
  • Coordinate maintenance activities with production schedules to minimize downtime and operational impact.
  • Support shutdown and outage planning activities including labor, materials, contractors, and scheduling coordination.
• Reporting & Continuous Improvement
  • Monitor maintenance KPIs including PM compliance, schedule compliance, backlog levels, downtime, and labor utilization.
  • Generate reports and planning metrics for management review.
  • Identify opportunities to improve maintenance workflows, planning accuracy, labor utilization, PM effectiveness, and equipment reliability.
  • Support maintenance cost control initiatives through efficient planning and resource coordination.

• Experience in industrial or manufacturing maintenance environments.
• Experience with CMMS systems (Tofino, SAP, Maximo, Infor EAM, etc.).
• Understanding of maintenance planning, PM programs, and maintenance workflows.
• Ability to read technical manuals, schematics, and equipment documentation.
• Strong organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and maintenance reporting systems.
• Understanding of reliability concepts and continuous improvement methodologies preferred.

Work is performed in a cold, wet, refrigerated raw food manufacturing environment requiring compliance with PPE, GMP, food safety, and sanitation standards. Frequent walking throughout the production floor and interaction with team members across departments and shifts.